In
honor of the traditional blessing we bestow on each other at this time of year
– Happy New Year! – here’s some food for thought from the field of positive
psychology.

Note: If you are unfamiliar with this branch of psychology, think of it as
the flip-side of the pathology of human behavior. Instead of studying why things go wrong in our lives, positive psychologists study why things go right.

Let’s
start with the popular notion that "Success leads to happiness.” It turns out
that we need to flip this idea around.
In fact, the opposite is true: "Happiness leads to success.”

Recent
studies in the field of positive psychology have confirmed that:

Happiness
improves our physical health,

Happiness
improves our earning potential,

Happiness
improves our creativity,

Happiness
improves our ability to think clearly and accurately, and

Happiness prolongs our lives.

THE HAPPINESS ADVANTAGE

"…Happiness
gives us a real chemical edge on the competition,” says author Shawn Achor in
his book The Happiness Advantage.

"How? Positive emotions flood
our brains with dopamine and serotonin, chemicals that not only make us feel
good, but dial up the learning centers of our brains to higher levels. They help us organize new information, keep
that information in the brain longer, and retrieve it faster later on.

"And, they enable us to make and sustain more
neural connections, which allows us to think more quickly and creatively,
become more skilled at complex analysis and problem solving, and see and invent
new ways of doing things.”

PROVEN HAPPINESS BOOSTERS

If
you’re not ‘naturally happy,’ don’t despair. Happiness can be learned!

Achor
cites the following ways to improve our moods and raise our levels of happiness. These techniques have been verified in
multiple studies:
Find something to look
forward to.

Anticipating
rewards activates the same parts of the brain as actually receiving rewards.

Examples: Imagine a gathering with your favorite
people or think about your favorite movie.

Use a signature strength.

Every
time we do something we’re good at, we experience a burst of positivity.

In
one study, depressed patients who exercised at least 45 minutes per week experienced
significant improvement for up to six weeks longer than their meds-only
counterparts.

Meditate.

Scientists
have identified the left prefrontal cortex of our brains as the part that is
most responsible for feeling happy. People
who’ve spent years meditating have larger prefrontal cortexes than the rest of
us.

Even
five minutes a day of meditation makes a difference. It improves concentration and makes us calmer.

Study
after study confirms that happiness really is an advantage in most endeavors. Plus, (dare I say it?), it just feels
better! Don’t believe me? Consider this:

Students who took tests that were critical to their
advancement and future opportunities consistently outperformed their peers when
they thought about the happiest day of their lives just before their exams.
THE HAPPY AUDITIONER

See
if you don’t improve your audition win-ratio using this technique, similar to the pre-exam boost the students used in the study above.

I stumbled across this a couple of years ago when I did a
call-back with a production company I really
wanted to work with. (And yes, I got
the gig!)

Before you perform your next audition, listen to
your favorite upbeat music. It will
raise your mood, boost your confidence, and inspire a superior performance. I listen to the same music on my ‘long drive home’ to
counter post-audition doubts, but I’m still figuring out the whole "It’s
selection, not rejection” thing.

Experiment
with lifting your mood before and after your auditions. It may help with the roller-coaster nature
of winning and losing voice-acting jobs.

Seriously. In 2013, think about putting more Happy in
your New Year. You’ll be glad you
did. The rewards are enormous.

For
more on the science of happiness, read The Happiness Advantage – The Seven
Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work by
Shawn Achor. Achor’s advice has been rigorously
tested in both academic (Harvard) and international commercial settings, he
writes well, and he’s funny. Recommended
reading for your voice over business – and for your life!-----------------------------------------------------ABOUT ELIZABETHElizabeth
Holmes is a writer, voice actor, and staff editor at VoiceOverXtra,
based in Northern California. She is also editor of VoiceOverXtra's book
division, including Voice Over Legal, by voice actor / attorney Robert Sciglimpaglia. For earlier columns in this series, please type "Sounds Odd" in the SEARCH box at the top of this web page.

Yes, I agree everybody needs a little "Julie Andrews" in their daily lives, but I wouldn't take it over the top! I've got two sisters and a mother-in-law who think every minute of the day should be "Hunkey Dorey," "Absolutely wonderful," and they gush "gooey" happiness all day long.

But, I dare say, the world's not built on continuous joy. Bring up the subjects of politics, religion, cancer, Newtown, World Wars 1&2, and their eyes glaze over...and they run in the opposite direction. Yes, embrace the world to be a wonderful place, but also embrace it's spell-bindingly horrific moments as well.

My wife is an Episcopal Preacher, The Right Reverend Patricia Roberts. She always preached to believe in the good, but there is bad, and there is ugly...therefore you must live your life, "real." I'm not complainin' I'm just sayin.' It's like the Beatles lyric: "And in the end...the love you take is equal to the love you make." Dave.

jennifer m dixon

12/27/2012 at 1:18 AM

Love it, Elizabeth! Only one little thing I would change here is - Start right now - don't wait another moment. Just Be Happy!